


Aftershock

by AraSigyrn



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-12
Updated: 2011-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plot tribble adoption: "What if Kris started staying at Adam's after the divorce (Shut up! It's inevitable! Fandom says so!) but then it got to be too much for Adam to have him around all the time? This isn't new, obviously, that's usually the point where Adam snaps and kisses Kris or something - but what if, out of self-preservation, he asked Kris to move out instead?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftershock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jerakeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerakeen/gifts).



"I can't do this any more," Adam blurts out over breakfast.

Kris, who is rocking the adorable/hot-jailbait look in his scruffy jeans and old T-shirt, looks up from the coffee maker. His eyes are still red which means he was crying last night and Adam is the biggest ass-hole on the planet, yes but god this has to stop.

"I'm really sorry," he continues when Kris just blinks at him. "But this really, really isn't working for me. I think you need more space, you know?"

"There are like twenty bedrooms," Kris points out, voice fucked-out hoarse and Adam is very, very grateful to be sitting down. Nothing hides an inappropriate erection better than a whole kitchen counter.

"Yeah but, I don't know that I'm _helping_ , you know? Straight relationships and the collapse of the all-American dream isn't really my thing," and Adam honestly isn't this much of an ass-hole but Kris is too fucking tempting like this with his bare toes curled into the sunny tiles and his magnificent case of bed-head.

Kris' shoulders hunch up and his eyes slide away. He steps away from the coffee maker and wraps his arms around himself, toes curling under the cuffs of his pants. He looks lost and Adam has to bite back the apology. Kris will forgive him for being the most insensitive asshole in the continental US because Kris is a sweetheart like that. Kris will not forgive Adam if Adam loses his mind and kisses him brain-dead and ties him to his bed until the only thing Kris remembers is Adam's name.

"I-," Kris swallows and his eyes are glassy when he tries to smile at Adam. "Sorry, man, didn't mean to outstay my welcome."

"It's fine," Adam says casually, looking away so he won't see the way Kris folds in on himself like Adam punched him in the kidneys. "I can totally help move your stuff, though?"

"...no," Kris' voice cracks a little and he's looking at the tiles when Adam risks a glance at him. "No, thanks but I can manage."

The coffee-maker beeps and Kris jumps, looking up with wide wet eyes and Adam looks down at the newspaper and chews his lip raw to keep from just grabbing Kris and hugging him until that awful broken look fades from his eyes. Kris is too fucking selfless for his own good and Adam hates that he knows Kris is going to blame himself for Adam's sudden diva fit.

Adam has to physically bite back the retraction, the open invitation because Kris is killing him. Adam's only human. A whole week of half-dressed, mussed-up, _vulnerable_ Kris burrowing into his arms at every available opportunity and Adam is dying. If Kris was anyone else on the fucking planet, Adam would have just backed him up against a wall and fucked both their brains out. Three times a day and four on Sunday, in fact.

"I guess-" Kris clears his throat and it sounds horrible and raw. "I guess I should go pack."

"Want a hand?" Adam asks, drawing on every acting lesson he ever took to sound nonchalant and careful not to look up.

"No, no. You've done enough." Kris swallows audibly. "Thanks anyway."

Adam stays at the counter, drinking his slimy smoothie in tiny sips and utterly failing to read the same two inch column on next year's fashions until he hears Kris call out a hesitant goodbye from the front hall.

"I'll call you," he shouts back and Kris' response is inaudible.

He buries his face in his arms the second the door closes but the tears don't come until he finds Kris' iPhone, carefully switched off and left on the dresser with a post-it stuck to the top asking Adam to give it to his housekeeper for her girl who's going to college. Adam only has that one number for Kris, aside from the Arkansas land-line which is only for real emergencies and the reality of what he's done finally hits Adam hard and low in the belly.

He crawls into Kris' bed with bottle of vodka and drowns himself in expensive Russian booze and self-loathing for the rest of the weekend.

Here's the thing, though. Kicking Kris out was supposed to make it better, make it easier for Adam to focus on their friendship. It seems perfectly logical that Kris being out of the house, so Adam isn't seeing him in various stages of rumpled, undressed and criminally adorable, would make it easier to tamp down on the whole 'crush from hell'.

Instead, Adam is achingly aware of the spaces where Kris _was_ , the way there's still some ridiculously fattening cheese dip in a Tupperware container, the beer cans and bottle muddled in with his (proper) alcohol in the cabinet and he keeps tripping over notes and post-its with Kris' scrawly handwriting.

It's mostly reminders and little random facts that Kris must have heard in passing and scribbled down to remember for later. There's some music – a jumble of chords and lyrics that Adam spends a whole weekend trying and failing to fit together into a song – but only in the bedroom that was Kris'. Adam keeps bringing back Kris' favourite juices, pretzels for game night and forgetting that Kris isn't here until he's opening the door and he doesn't trip over Kris' sneakers.

As if that wasn't bad enough, and clearly Fate isn't interested in Adam's opinion, this time _Kris_ gets all their friends in the break-up. Adam isn't even kidding. He finds out two days after Kris leaves (was kicked out) that Kris called _Brad_ for a ride. Brad is worse than the Spanish Inquisition so of course Brad got the whole thing out of Kris who can only keep secrets when they're other people's.

Adam has no clue what Kris told Brad – it isn't like Kris to be bitchy but Adam's honest enough to admit that he _totally_ deserved if Kris told Brad he was the world's biggest asshole – and he's probably never going to. Brad was fucking _nuclear_ when he called around that Thursday and he hasn't been picking up Adam's calls since.

Allison is the only person acknowledging his existence lately; even Tommy isn't talking about anything but the music and when Adam kisses him in San Fran at the last concert, Tommy draws blood. He offers a half-ass apology after and leaves Adam to deal with the hordes of fans who are all more than willing to kiss it better.

"You are so off your game, man," Allison declares, joining him at the bar about an hour into the after-tour party. Adam, who can read subtext, has been sitting and drinking shit margaritas while everyone else dances and sings on the other side of the bar. (Seriously, how the fuck are the _lighting guys_ on Kris' side here?) "It's getting pathetic to watch, you know?"

"I'm so sorry that having my heart broken isn't amusing you," Adam snaps because, well, he can be a mean drunk.

"Seriously? _You_ 're the one with the broken heart in this situation?"

"Why is that so hard for everyone to believe?" Adam glowers into his cocktail.

"Because," Allison starts counting off on her fingers. "You kicked him out: you've been rocking the club circuit with what, six new guys a week? And you still leave the house. You sure don't sound like the one who got his heart broke."

"Wait, wait," Adam wishes suddenly that he wasn't so drunk. This sounds like it's going to be the sort of conversation he should have sober but Allison's giddy and probably a little drunk (and when Adam finds out who bought her actual alcohol, they are fucking _fired_ ) and this is probably the last chance he's going to get. "Kris hasn't left the house?"

"Apartment," Allison corrects helpfully and oh fuck, that means-

"He's staying with Cale, isn't he?"

"Duh," Allison rolls her eyes. "Andrew wanted to take him in but he's known Cale since forever-"

"I know," Adam says gloomily.

"-and he was the only one who Brad had an LA address for. I've talked to him once or twice, he's 'writing'" Allison makes exaggerated quotation marks with her fingers. "And he only talks to me because I'm persistent and I don't let Cale's girlfriend out-bitch me."

"Cale's girlfriend," Adam scrabbles for the name but it's hopeless. He's never met the woman without Kris being there and Kris trumps just about everything else whenever he's in Adam's line of sight. "She's the one who-"

"-goes to the crazy church with the pastor who's always on the news?" Allison nods. "Yeah, she's been ...vocal. Cale says it's been rough but he doesn't answer the phone much. I think she's jealous which is bullshit, I mean just because Kris is bi-"

Adam chokes on the fortifying mouthful of margarita. "Kris is WHAT?"

"Bi?" Allison blinks at him. "Bi-sex-ual? Likes boys and girls 'like that'? Plays for both teams? I mean, I don't think he's actually been with a guy. He's still a one-girl or one-guy, I guess, kinda guy. Plus, you know, he's still hung up on you and he isn't leaving the house, sorry, flat so I don't think he's had one-night stands or anything."

Adam lets her babble on because that's not a bombshell, that's a sustained air-raid on everything Adam thought he knew about Kris Allen and he's a little shell-shocked. Kris being bisexual, okay, yeah. Adam can see his flirting and yeah, of all the people he knows, Kris is definitely not one of the people who wouldn't get hung up on gender. But that's not all Allison said, not at all.

Kris is hung up on him. Kris, who is still in so many ways the sweet Southern boy Adam met in Hollywood week, is 'hung up' on _Adam_. Adam knows Kris well enough to translate 'hung up' to 'in love with'. Kris does nothing half-assed and he doesn't get crushes, not 'hung-up' on kind of crushes. He wouldn't still be upset if it was just a crush and-

-And what the fuck is Adam still doing in a piss-poor bar that he didn't want to come to _anyway_ when Kris is out there, in love with him? And Adam is scrambling up (even his natural grace is no match for most of a jug of tequila) and throwing money at the bar, or the barkeeper at least and he's gone.

Adam only half-remembers where Cale's apartment is. He gets out of the cab a few blocks from what is probably the right place. The air is cool and he's wearing club-clothes so he sobers up a little but he's still far from sober. As it turns out, he doesn't have to remember because there's a park and a bench, complete with graffiti and bullet-holes, and a Kris, wearing a hoody that's far too big for him. He looks tiny, swimming in cotton and looking at the sky with wide brown eyes and Adam loves him so much that it hurts, a clean sharp pain in his chest that stings with every thump of his heart.

Kris sees him when Adam's still three feet away and goes tense, eyes open so wide and so open and Kris never learnt how to fake what he's feeling like everyone else in LA. Kris still wears his heart on his sleeve, you just have to know how to look for it and Adam is the biggest ass-hole in the whole fucking world.

He drops to his knees, right there on the dirty concrete in his hundred-dollar jeans and catches Kris' hands. Kris' mouth is open, surprise and a strangled 'hello' lost in his surprise. He's too thin, pale and tired and wonderful.

"I'm an idiot," Adam says, hands curled so their fingers are tangled together. "And I'm an ass-hole and a bastard and I totally don't deserve a second chance. But I want one. I want to be able to tell you that I didn't mean it. That the only reason I didn't want you in my house was because I was afraid that I'd never be able to let you leave. I want to tell you that I've been in love with you forever, even when I shouldn't have been. I want to tell you that I want you, however you'll let me have you and that I will make you so happy, I swear, I will."

He takes a deep breath, the second stretching out like they're the only two people in the world and leans in, looking Kris straight in the eyes and hiding nothing. "And, after all that? I want you to want me back."

Kris is staring at him, mouth so soft and pink and open but Adam stays where he is. He's fucked this up too many times already and Kris has to choose this. Kris has to able to see past the pettiness and the jaded rock star and Adam thinks, somewhere under the expectant silence, that he won't blame Kris if Kris doesn't want to.

His knees are bitching up a fit but Adam is okay with staying right where he is for the rest of the night if that is what it takes.

"You," Kris' voice sounds hoarse and ravaged, like he's been crying. "Are a _dick_."

Adam nods stupidly. He is. He really, really is.

Kris' hand comes up to tangle in his hair and his fingers are cold as ice against the super-heated flush of Adam's skin. "And if you _ever_ pull this shit again-"

And Adam's kissing him or Kris is kissing _him_ and there are fireworks going off and Adam is a hundred feet tall and shining like a supernova and that, that is Kris forgiving him. Adam sweeps Kris up, tastes his surprised laughter but Kris' legs hook around his hips before Adam can second-guess himself. There's friction, sweet and needy and god, it's been a lifetime since Adam's come in his pants but it's going to happen. Kris is panting and too-light, with pokey elbows and too-sharp ribs and he's rocking up against Adam in perfect, natural counterpoint.

Adam bites his lip when the climax hits, tastes copper and coffee and _Kris_ , like a Southern sugar-cane and bourbon and Kris shivers all over and they're hot and sticky and, _god_ , that just happened.

Adam just dry-humped his best friend in the middle of a park, in the middle of LA and he's going to have to get them a taxi with his jeans damp and sticky. He shivers just at the thought of it, crowded together in a taxi with the smell of sex and wonders how much his agent is going to cry if (when) he jacks Kris off in that private place, just to see Kris come unravelled and trusting and wild.

Then Kris lifts his head from where he was burrowed against Adam's neck, eyes bright and vibrant and smiling and Adam forgets how to care...


End file.
